This is partly why I am so wary of the argument for killing everyone who tests under 120 IQ. It is an incomplete measurement of human value and behavior.

Abstract logical intelligence is important, but how do we measure bravery, obedience, stability and fortitude? Intuition? Reliability? Grace? Again, I assert that a Russian peasant with 95 IQ, living in a community that has not changed in a thousand years, is probably much more valuable and less destructive than the average 125 IQ college kid in the United States or Western Europe.

We need to develope a criteria for human worth that is based on more than IQ. This probably isn't actually very hard. It's actually very easy, once you get to know someone, to recognize their potentials and to estimate what is salvagable in their Being.

Note: Sometimes I suspect that the fixation on IQ as a measurement of worth actually stems from the experience of social alienation of a certain kind of person who is attracted to these sites. This kind of alienated individual probably has little intimate experience with other people and has done little traveling. I also suspect that some folks are unable to identify anything valuable about themself except for their abstract cognitive potential, and that the IQ culling argument has more to do with an emotional lashing out against their insecurities than a legitimate drive to alter the course of civilization. I recognize that this is "ad hominem", and therefore cannot be taken as a formal argument. It is just a guess, but it may also help to explain why very few people on these boards go further than 'towing the party line': it's all about comfort levels.

Okay. It doesn't need to be complete. In fact, completion might be an impossibility. However, it SHOULD do its best to account for as much reality as possible, shouldn't it? Especially realities that have a concrete effect on everyday life?

Traditionally defined intelligence is important. It is without a doubt ONE OF central issues. But I don't think you can disentangle it from the other central issues, which are somewhat harder to define. The problem of raw stupidity is a very visible, easily understood one. The irony, is that the proposed solutions attract mostly sub-sub-geniuses.

Consider something for a moment. There have been many small scale societies on this planet that haven't exhibited the same trends as ours (endless expansion, the reduction of everything to a purely economic level). These societies are often composed of people of very low IQ. Think Kalahari(sp?) Bushmen, or the denizens of the rain-forrests in South America. These are small, nearly static, stable socieites. But they can't count past five, in some cases. Real stupid, right? Thing is, there must be SOMETHING about their psyche which prevents them from shitting all over their surroundings.

Your Culling programs have nothing to account for such an intangibility, however, and these people would be wiped out along with everyone else.

I anticipate that the reactionary response to my statement is going to be that I'm simply seeking to avoid reality and refusing to "go forward" because of some kind of kneejerk morality which has intervened in my thoughtprocess. Or that I'm afraid that I am not up to standards somehow, or perhaps (most laughable of all) that I don't want to lose the comfort of having a vast horde of drooling morons around to make sandwiches, clean toilets and pump gas for me.

This is not the case. I too believe in the establishment of a more elegant, powerful, goal-driven society; one which is less likely to collapse in on itself from internal decay and degenerate into crowd rule. I also think this is do-able. The reason why I refuse to step in line with regards to the Culling argument is simply that I don't think it moves us closer to that goal. In fact, I think it will end up diverting us. There are too many problems with the idea itself, not to mention the enormous practical difficulties - which would almost certainly cause the program to fail and the crowd to reassert itself even more powerfully than before.

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shadowmystic

I was under the impression that the 'kill everyone under 120IQ' idea was anus being ironic in order to make a point as they so often do. I don't think anyone here actually supports such a generalising, moralising form of judgement.

However, it SHOULD do its best to account for as much reality as possible, shouldn't it?

What part of killing dumb people is unrealistic?

Did I find the retired schoolteachers forum instead of a metal forum?

"Kill all pedophiles," that's too simplistic, we should give them cheese and acccounts which can post to 4chan. I know I'd want that if I accidentally sodomized a young boy, or several, or maybe took photos of myself anally splitting a 4-year-old girl before I buried her cooling body in a shallow grave by the roadside.

Did you know that the ancient Greeks practiced pedophilia? We should give pedophiles medals instead, because some of them are geniuses.

The useless seem to utilize the external to fuel private fantasy within themselves. The useful are energized from within, emitting ideas and action toward the external. It is the difference between a black hole and a radiant sun. I don't know if that is a metaphysical description. It isn't minutely precise, but it seems like a fair generalized starting point.

What you call 'metaphysical intelligence' - really the ability to apply abstract ideals to concrete reality - is the highest strata of human intelligence, the strata of true genius, of artists, philosophers and leaders. If the goal is to nurture this in all humans, then 'metaphysical' intelligence is the strongest argument in favor of radical eugenics, rather than a mark against it, for only those whose intellect is of the highest order are capable of possessing metaphysical intelligence.

It is true that limiting the scope of eugenics to intelligence, or focusing on it, is rather stupid. Other character traits are more important. A "strong" character requires more than intelligence, and intelligent people can screw things up just as well. Yes, stupid people always screw things up; but only if one allows them to. A devote but stupid worker is preferable to a speculating super-intelligent philosopher. And a better fundament for eugenics is a thorough understanding of race.

...And a better fundament for eugenics is a thorough understanding of race.

If I am correct in assuming that by race you mean a recognition of human communities as an organic totality with an animating spirit that operates on a super-individual level, than I agree with you fully. The race is a body, with different components filling radically different roles.

It goes without saying that the various racial bodies that exist certainly need to burn off some fat! But the question is whether this excess 'fat' exists simply as a result of lack of abstract cognition.

At this point, recognizing the organic "bodily" nature of society, it becomes appropriate to talk about cancer. Fat is certainly a problem, but a problem easier solved than the insideous progression of cancer throughout the whole organism. This cancer is utterly unrelated to intelligence. In fact, it can be perpetuated especially by intelligent elements. Think, for instance, of what apparently 'intelligent' theories such as Marxism, Freudianism, Scientific Matierialism and Enlightenment Liberalism represent in terms of represent. Partisans of these ideologies are almost invariably quite intelligent.

Consider that intelligence alone does not produce consensus. In fact, the misapplication of intelligence can have utterly destructive, dissonant effects on the overall structure of society.

Also, False Profit, my life experience tells me that even those lacking in technical, intellectual abilities can be imbued with a kind of intuitive sense that guides them through life in a constructive, creative manner, and that this is actually not even that rare. For instance, I had a friend who was a gifted poet, in a kind of raw, musical intuitive manner. He had a natural tendency towards harmonious order as well as physical and mental health. He wouldn't have had the slightest chance of dealing with the semantics of this argument, however, except in a kind of visceral sub-sensory way. It is amply obvious that this sort of being, beyond not being inherently destructive or parasitic, could actually fulfill a constructive, transcendant role within a properly organized social order.